The Repeat on Maple Lane

At forty-two, I still lived in the same house I grew up in, a modest two-story on Maple Lane that my parents left me when they passed. The neighborhood had aged, but the house remained steeped in memories, especially those Saturday mornings of my youth. Back then, my father, a creature of habit, would rise at dawn, walk to the corner store for his coffee and the morning paper, and return just as I settled in front of the television for cartoons.

One particular Saturday, when I was twelve, the routine broke in the most unsettling way. I was parked on the living room floor, cereal bowl in hand, when the front door creaked open. Dad walked in, holding his steaming coffee and folded newspaper, and he gave me that familiar smile, crinkling his eyes. He set the paper on the kitchen table–I heard the thud from where I sat–and then he retreated into the hallway, the bedroom door clicking shut. I waited for the sound of the TV in the den, but instead, the front door opened again. There stood Dad, identical in every way: same coffee, same paper, same smile. He walked in, placed the paper on the table with the same thud, and disappeared into the bedroom.

I sat rigid, my cartoon forgotten. I was not scared, not yet, just deeply confused. Maybe I had dozed off? But the cereal in my mouth was real, the TV hummed, and the clock on the VCR showed no time had passed. I tiptoed to the kitchen, but the table was bare. No paper. No coffee rings. I crept to the bedroom door, pushed it open, and found it empty, the bed still made. The house had swallowed my father twice, and I never saw him again that day. When Mom came downstairs, I asked where Dad was. She said he had an early shift at the plant, but I knew he had been here. I never told her.

That incident marked the beginning of my recurring deja vu, a persistent sense that moments were repeating, that I had lived them before. It became a constant hum in my life, sometimes pleasant, often disquieting. I learned to ignore it, to dismiss it as a quirk of the brain. But after my parents died, I moved back into the house, and the feelings intensified, particularly in that living room.

Last Saturday, I woke at dawn, unable to sleep. The house felt stifling, the air thick. I made my way to the living room, flicking on the TV for company, and sank into the same worn spot on the floor. At the kitchen window, I saw the figure of an old man, hunched in a familiar coat, shuffling toward the front door. My heart lurched. It was my father, or at least his ghost, coming as he always did. The door opened, and I heard the rustle of his paper, the tap of his shoes. I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t. I heard the thud of the paper on the kitchen table, then the click of the bedroom door.

But this time, the front door did not open. A chill ran down my spine. I forced myself to look. The bedroom door was ajar, and from it spilled the sound of water running, the creak of pipes. Then the door closed. The bathroom light flicked on. I heard the muffled sound of someone humming–my father’s off-key tune. The doorknob turned slowly, and I heard the rustle of fabric.

I fled. I ran to the porch, into the front yard, and saw that the street was empty, the houses dark, dawn still breaking. I stood there, panting, and then I felt the deja vu wash over me like a wave. I had stood here before, in this exact moment, thirty years ago. The front door swung open behind me. I turned, and there he was–my father, holding a cup of coffee and a paper, smiling, but now his smile stretched too wide, his eyes black as coal. He walked toward me, and as he passed, I heard him whisper, ‘You’re next.’

I woke up in my bed, drenched in sweat. It was Saturday, 5:50 AM. I stumbled to the living room, and there I was, sitting on the floor in my pajamas, watching cartoons. My father walked in, coffee and paper in hand, and smiled at me. I looked into his eyes, and they were normal. He placed the paper on the table and walked to the bedroom. I waited, breath held. The front door opened again. He walked in, identical, smiled, and set the paper down. I knew what I had to do. I stood up, my legs shaking, and followed him into the bedroom. The door shut behind me, and I saw him standing at the window, his reflection in the glass not matching his movements. He turned to me, and his face melted, revealing nothing, and then he replaced it with my father’s face, then my own. I understood then: I had become the echo, the one always repeated, never the one who leaves. And so I waited, in that bedroom, for the next version of myself to arrive, ready to repeat the ritual, to keep the loop alive, forever. And I smiled, just like he did.